Follow the Leader
by Sweet Darkling
Summary: Tess got into the ship...and then what happened? What happened on Antar and how did she survive? How did she get back? For some people, they have to follow others before they can lead and that's just what happened with Tess. Pro-Tess but canon and CC.


**Disclaimer****:** I don't own Roswell.

**Author's Note****:** Ok, so this might have been written whilst listening to The Beautiful South (Perfect 10 and Don't Marry Her in particular) so...let's just say that there be hints of that later on. Anywho, this is completely Tess-centric, focussing on her time in Antar. It takes place directly when she enters the space ship and leaves the others behind. It's a companion to Unnatural Born Leaders and Antarian Intrigue. Consider it as from the same universe. It's not necessary to read either of them to read this. Hope you guys like it – I hope I managed to capture the emotions I was trying to express in this chapter. I'd really appreciate it if you could review and tell me what vibes you caught from this one.

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Follower to Leader

I

Tess slips down to the floor, leaning against the wall of the ship. After fighting it for a few seconds, she gives into her tears (but only for a few seconds, she promises herself). After more than a few minutes later, she's too dehydrated to cry on, so she just sits there, burying her head in her arms in a pathetic attempt at consolation. The excitement she'd felt for the past weeks, even the hope to reach home she'd had since she could remember, they were all gone. She couldn't recall a vestige of those emotions, instead having fear crushing her chest in, making it hard to breathe.

How the _hell_ was she going to do this by herself? With the other three, with the _Royal Four_, they had had a chance. More than that, they would've won. She was sure of that. She can recall dimly memories of being powerful and belonging and being able to do things. But that's just the past, she has to force herself to remember. She's no Ava and there's no Zan. There isn't even a Max to help her through her fears and panic (although she had been the one to usually do that, now that she thinks about it). But it doesn't really matter in the end. For all of her confidence and focus, for all that she had always been the one with the desire to go home and to fight the fight, she is terrified and she isn't even sure if she will survive.

She wished Nasedo was alive. If he'd been alive and here with her, he would have made sure that she'd survive. He would've known how to direct the ship to go where it needed to go, he'd have told her how to outwit Khivar and Nicolas; he would've given her courage and comfort too but he wasn't here. He was dead and she was alone and she had no idea what to do and she really, really, REALLY didn't want to die.

She wasn't sure how long it was before she moved – she looked down at her watch but it had stopped working. It was probably the change in gravity or the lack of time-space continuum or something that broke it. She didn't really care except that it highlighted just how little she knew about science and the world in general. And the home she was going to? She didn't have a clue about it, apart from snippets of memories she'd somehow recovered. She knew too little and she was starting to panic again so, telling herself to take a couple of deep breaths, she licked her lips which felt horribly dry.

Water. FOOD! She was going to starve to death! It was this fear, more than discovery of some hidden courage that finally forced her to stand up. Her legs were stiff – just how long had she been sitting down for? It didn't matter. She massaged her legs a little, trying to reduce the cramps but when she walked around, keeping one hand against the wall of the ship, her steps were crampy anyway, feeling stiff and broken and unused. But she was hungry now, very hungry and very thirsty and dry too. Nasedo always said that tears were a waste of time and even if there had been times when she'd hated him and disagreed with him about everything, this wasn't one of them. Tears really _were_ a waste of time and she wished she hadn't cried but she had and she wished she wasn't going to die but she had a feeling she had just sped it up.

"Ouch." She wasn't sure if she'd even said it out loud or if it had all been in her head but the wall, rounding a corner, had a sharp edge that had cut into her shoulder but it at least seemed to wake her up from the daze she had been in. Her steps quickened, as did her glances around sharpened. There wasn't much she could see – it was far too dark inside – but nevertheless, she could make out indistinct shapes and however low the chances, she wasn't going to miss out on finding some food and water.

For the briefest second, she thought she saw a shadow moving. Staring at the dark, she forced her heart to stop thumping quite so aggressively. She carried on staring there until she decided it must have been her imagination. There couldn't be anyone else on board – there _wasn't_ anyone else on board with her. She was all alone...she hoped. Licking her lips again, she carried on moving along the wall, now hyperaware of any sounds or movements that could occur. Funny how one second, she was bemoaning her loneliness and seconds later, would have given anything to be sure that she was alone. It didn't really appeal to her humour and her lips didn't really move up into a smile. If she wasn't alone here...but she didn't really want to think about that. She couldn't allow herself to think about it and she focussed instead on food, what kind there might be aboard this ship (Wouldn't it have gone bad by now?) and what kind there might be on Antar. She could imagine purple coloured rice, maybe? Or how about multicoloured fruits? She didn't think there could be any polka-dotted ones. That was just childishness, surely?

Her thoughts were bound to get macabre soon. And it happened inevitably. There were only so many imaginative thoughts of food she could think about before she began to worry about the lack thereof. She'd been walking for quite some time, cramping in her legs and now her stomach too and she hadn't come across anything that looked like it would contain some food or drinks. The panic that had taken over her when she'd first entered was all but gone now, leaving her with a paralysing sense of helplessness and impending doom. (Although does doom count as doom if it only affects one person?) She was ready to give up and, after walking around for what felt like quite a bit longer, she did, sliding down the wall again and curling herself up against it. This was a bad idea. What had ever made her think she could do this without Nasedo? (Without Max and Isabel and, damn it all, without Michael as well.) Tired, emotionally and physically, she tried to ignore her thirst and hunger by forcing her eyes shut and at some point, it worked. She fell into a sleep wracked with nightmares of people abandoning her, of Alex's last moments of life, of being killed by Khivar and Nicolas and of dying here, all alone, in the dark.


End file.
